Ares1-X failure - new information

Brian Thorn wrote:

Yes. It was always targeted for availability in 2012, and is actually
pretty close to being on schedule (unlike J-2X.)

"always" is a bit of a misnomer. When Bush Jr announced this, test
flights were to begin in 2008 and first manned flight in 2010.

Now, it appears that first test flight of an Ares1 rocket will be 2012.
(Ares-1X wasn't really an "Ares" test flight, it was just a demo of a
standalone Shuttle SRB with mock payload on top).



Something just doesn't add up here. Since this is all pork stuff, what
is the Michoud plant going to be doing all those years since it has
stopped making shuttle tanks and there won't be some Ares5 for probably
a decade ? Will the people remain employed and just be sweeping floors
during all those years ?


What is ATK going to be doing if there are no more shuttle SRBs needed,
and Nasa will have a very slow test programme with just a couple of SRBs
needed ? Can all that infrastructure afford to keep all those people
employed when you have a test program going on at a turtle's pace ?


Cosnidering that under the original plan, those companies would be
entering full regular production by 2010 to launch multiple Ares rockets
each year.

Now, we're looking at what 2015 before Ares1 could enter production ? It
isn't just a 5 year gap for a few astronauts not able to get to space,
it is also a 5 year gap of the thousands of employees who were producing
shuttle stuff and will be iddled untiil Ares goes into production.

Jeff Findley wrote:
The Saturn V second stage shared the J-2 engine with the Saturn IB upper
stage (Saturn V third stage), but the stages had little else in common. The
Saturn V first stage had close to nothing in common with anything on the
Saturn I.

There were even fairly substantial differences between the mounting of
the eight H-1 engines on the first stage of the Saturn I versus the
Saturn IB regarding where the turbopump exhaust went.
What Saturn I did was give WvB's Saturn team some experience in building
a large rocket before they had to make a giant one.
Imagine having to go straight from Jupiter to Saturn V?
Korolev never got that stepping stone on the way to the N-1, as the
Saturn I equivalent Soviet rocket - Proton - was built by the competing
Chelomei design bureau, so all Korolev had to go on for practical
experience was his uprated R-7 and some ICBM designs.

Pat

On Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:07:54 -0500, John Doe wrote:

Yes. It was always targeted for availability in 2012, and is actually
pretty close to being on schedule (unlike J-2X.)

"always" is a bit of a misnomer. When Bush Jr announced this, test
flights were to begin in 2008 and first manned flight in 2010.

Actually, Bush said, "Our second goal is to develop and test a new
spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, by 2008, and to conduct the
first manned mission no later than 2014"

http://history.nasa.gov/Bush%20SEP.htm

That should read Bush SEP.htm

Arguably, we're still on schedule! We do have mockup Orions we're
testing... :-)

Bush also said...

"I will call upon Congress to increase NASA's budget by roughly a
billion dollars, spread out over the next five years."

....which never happened.

And of course, that Bush announcement in January 2004 didn't identify
what the booster would be like. The first hard plans came along with
the ESAS report in the summer of 2005, when CLV and CaLV were
announced as the chosen method. And it was another year before the CLV
adopted the Five Segment SRB. Since then, 2012 has been the baseline
"readiness" date for the Five Segment SRB.


Something just doesn't add up here. Since this is all pork stuff, what
is the Michoud plant going to be doing all those years since it has
stopped making shuttle tanks and there won't be some Ares5 for probably
a decade ? Will the people remain employed and just be sweeping floors
during all those years ?

Building Ares I Upper Stage.

Cosnidering that under the original plan, those companies would be
entering full regular production by 2010 to launch multiple Ares rockets
each year.

Nope, Bush gave them until 2014. And then didn't fund them.

Brian